“It’s not boring? How can you be so certain?”
Abelard was not surprised by the voice that suddenly spoke. It was because he had known for a while.
After all, was he not now a great Archmage on the verge of the 8th Circle? Although Kreutzvalt’s presence was as faint as an Ogre’s, Abelard had already sensed him before even entering the Lord of the Magic Tower’s room.
However, even now, he could not accurately estimate the other man’s level. It meant that he was at a higher place than Abelard, at least.
“I’m not being certain. I’m just guessing.”
“Guessing.”
“That’s right.”
Kreutzvalt, leaning on his staff, approached and naturally stood beside Abelard. Together, they looked out at the sky through the window.
“How does it feel to have climbed up here yourself? I thought I could grasp the sky in my hands at any moment, but in the end, isn’t there another sky above this one?”
“You’re right.”
“I thought everything would go my way if I looked down from here, but once you step out of this room, my child, aren’t you ultimately no different from the humans down there?”
“That is also true.”
“So you must find it dull. It must be vacant, tedious, and boring. It’s because you don’t yet know how to climb even higher.”
“A way to climb even higher?”
Abelard, who had been answering without much emotion, showed a spark of feeling in his eyes for the first time as his gaze turned toward Kreutzvalt. Kreutzvalt was looking out the window with a faint smile.
“It is a way for you to truly ascend to the sky. A way to stand on the real top, not a fake peak that has been decorated so plausibly like this.”
“I’m not interested in the top. What I want is the end of magic and the ultimate magic.”
“You still don’t realize that those are the same thing.”
One could only reach the end of magic after standing above the sky. That was what Kreutzvalt was saying.
“I’ll hear you out.”
By that point, Abelard must have become curious about the existence known as Kreutzvalt. He must have been curious about the power, ability, and reason why this man could stroll in and out of the top floor of the Tower of Mages, which was crawling with all sorts of magical devices, as if it were nothing.
And although he had reached the top floor of the Tower of Mages, it was indeed as empty as the man had said.
“First, let’s address this. Why do you think you were able to rise to the position of the youngest Lord of the Magic Tower?”
“Because I am on the verge of the 8th Circle at a very young age.”
“Wrong. You were able to become the youngest Lord of the Magic Tower because the previous Lord disappeared.”
“That is also true, but I would have risen to the position of the Lord eventually anyway.”
“In about twenty years, perhaps.”
Abelard had also heard of the previous Lord of the Magic Tower. He had already been the Lord of the Magic Tower since the days when Abelard was in the Underground City, and even then, it was said that he was rarely seen in the Tower, leaving people wondering what he was doing.
Because of that, there had been constant talk since those days about the need to replace the Lord of the Magic Tower, but because the achievements he had established during his active years were so immense, they could not bring themselves to ignore him.
Even so, he had appeared occasionally in the past, but in recent years, even those sightings had ceased. At that opportune moment, Abelard, who appeared like a comet, rose to the position of the Lord of the Magic Tower.
“Kreutzvalt, do you know anything about the previous Lord of the Magic Tower?”
“Of course. It’s a problem because I know him too well. Pavlenko.”
Kreutzvalt claimed to know the previous Lord of the Magic Tower, who was shrouded in all sorts of veils. Thinking about it, it might be natural. Kreutzvalt was an Archmage who was known to have died 300 years ago.
“I know much more than you can imagine.”
Kreutzvalt turned his head and looked at Abelard.
“Don’t you want to know? Aren’t you curious? You are qualified. You are qualified to see the secrets hidden in this world.”
“The secrets.”
‘How could one not be curious when he put it that way?’ Hio, who was experiencing the memory through Abelard’s eyes, also felt a surge of curiosity. Abelard’s thoughts were similar to Hio’s.
“I am curious. About the secrets of the world that I do not know, and about the way to ascend above the sky.”
At Abelard’s words, Kreutzvalt turned away from the window and began to walk.
“Heh heh. You should be curious. That’s how a Magician should be. That is how you approach the truth.”
This was the top floor of the Tetradia Wizard’s Tower. It was the room of the Lord of the Magic Tower.
The entire place was decorated with special minerals that emitted a pure white light. In the center, there was only a single chair and desk. On the walls, there were forbidden books of the century and magic books known to have been lost.
Aside from those, it was a space that just felt vast without anything particularly special.
“First, let’s uncover the truth of the Tower of Mages.”
Kreutzvalt walked slowly toward the wall of the room.
“It looks plausible. Since all sorts of forbidden books and prohibited magic are gathered and displayed here, most people would just accept that this is why it’s so difficult to enter the Lord’s room.”
“Are you saying that’s not it?”
Managing and sealing magic that was prohibited in Tetradia because it was too dangerous or too cruel—was there something more important than that hidden here?
Kreutzvalt turned around again and pointed at Abelard with the staff in his hand.
“Pavlenko. Look at the room closely. Do you feel nothing?”
He slowly turned his body, pointing his staff at every corner of the large room.
“You would know. Someone like you, who sought to learn all magic without discrimination and possessed innate talent, would be able to notice it immediately.”
Abelard’s gaze also moved slowly, following Kreutzvalt’s staff. From the walls of the room to the decorations made of pure white minerals.
***
After completing one full circle like that, it was impossible not to know. That brilliant talent and memory that surpassed the human range had detected the bizarreness created by the room’s structure.
“……This is.”
“Heh heh heh. As expected, you noticed immediately. Yes, that’s right.”
The structure of the room was the language of Dragons.
“It is the Dragon Tongue.”
‘It was a form made of the language itself. How could that be? Had a Dragon been involved in the construction of the Tower of Mages?’
Thinking about it that way, it seemed to make some sense. Hadn’t this Tower of Mages been the most mysterious thing on the Continent in the first place? A tower with no records of when or how it came to exist.
Abelard momentarily thought that if a Dragon were behind that hidden history, it would be plausible enough. However, Kreutzvalt’s story surpassed even that expectation by far.
“Every Lord of the Magic Tower was a Dragon.”
It was a story that ordinary people would be better off not knowing.
“Under the pretext of protecting the world, we were being ruled by Dragons.”
It was a rather provocative choice of words to use “Dominion,” but it wasn’t entirely wrong either. There was no place on the Continent where the power of magic did not reach. There was no place that did not need a Magician.
And since this Tower of Mages was the place that controlled such Magicians and governed magic, being the Lord of the Magic Tower was essentially the final destination of power.
“……Let’s say your words are true, Kreutzvalt.”
Abelard quickly recovered from the shock and regained his composure.
Every past Lord of the Magic Tower was a Dragon. With that one fact, all sorts of hypotheses and thoughts he didn’t even want to imagine flashed through his mind, but that wasn’t what he needed to think about right now.
“Then is that all?”
It was shocking, but it was also just that. Compared to his boast about the secrets of the world, it was somewhat meager. Therefore, there was more. This was only the beginning.
‘Was there really something so massive hidden that such a secret was merely the start?’
“No, it isn’t.”
Of course, that couldn’t be it.
“First, let’s go see the disappeared previous Lord of the Magic Tower.”
Kreutzvalt drew up his Magic Power. The special minerals that had made the room pure white began to fluctuate.
“Originally, it would have been the exclusive property of Dragons, but not anymore.”
The light emitted by the minerals became even stronger. They were ores that accurately formed the shape of the Dragon Tongue, the shape of those letters.
“I made it so.”
Thus, the Dragon Tongue began to be engraved in the center of the large room. It was being completed as light in the air.
“It is the path to the Dragon’s Temple.”
The previous Lord of the Magic Tower. The path to the place where the disappeared Dragon resided was opening.
***
Kreutzvalt and Abelard headed toward the passage that had opened in the middle of the Lord’s room.
The Lord’s room they had been in just moments ago was large, but the space they arrived at immediately after passing through the passage was incomparably higher and wider.
Nevertheless, only two types of sounds could be heard. One was the sound of Abelard and Kreutzvalt’s footsteps as they walked forward.
And the other…
*Grumble—*
A low resonance, as if produced by a beast. The owner of that sound could be seen immediately.
It was impossible not to know, as it possessed an originally massive body and radiated a profound presence.
“This is…… the previous Lord of the Magic Tower?”
“That’s right.”
It was a Dragon. A giant Dragon.
How many people in their lives would have ever seen a Dragon’s form right in front of their eyes like this? It wasn’t even in a normal state.
Its original color was unknown, but its scales had lost their luster and its entire body was stained pitch-black. Its two eyes, torn vertically, had lost their mystery and held only destruction.
“Even its soul has been completely stained. Not just this fellow here, but every Dragon in the world will be in the same state.”
Every leg, tail, and even the wings of the Dragon were bound by chains as massive as its own torso. Beyond those physical constraints, Abelard’s gaze could clearly perceive all sorts of magical devices weighing down the Dragon’s body.
It was suppressing the Dragon to an almost excessive degree.
“Are you saying every guardian is in the same state?”
“They would have suffered the same treatment, but they are not in the same state. The rest likely sensed their fate and chose self-extinction. This fellow has research value, so I personally stepped in to stop it from ending its own life and captured it.”
“……All the other Dragons have vanished? Are you saying the Dragons are extinct?”
“My judgment is that a few slow young Dragons might have been stained by the Abyssal Depths like this one and ended up being controlled for the rest of their lives, but since that is what it is, it should practically be viewed as extinction.”
Abelard probably wouldn’t understand. No matter how much of a genius he was, or how he was a Lord of the Magic Tower of human origin appearing after hundreds or perhaps thousands of years, his power of understanding could not be exercised without information.
“I should first tell you about the Abyssal Depths and the war that is to come.”
“……The Abyssal Depths?”
What was the Abyssal Depths? Why did the Dragon end up like this? Since he couldn’t entirely trust Kreutzvalt’s words, he couldn’t know how dangerous the current situation was.
But Hio, who was inside him, was different. He knew what the Abyssal Depths were, and therefore he knew why the Dragon had turned out this way.
He still didn’t know exactly how it had to turn out like this, but what he could clearly tell was…
‘The war will begin, starting with the extinction of the Dragons.’
This place was a door. A door that could lead to the Abyssal Depths. It had existed on the top floor of the Tower of Mages, surrounded by the Dragon Tongue.
“Pavlenko, you will become a god in this war.”